Growing Roses With Poison
by Euregatto
Summary: When the darkness defies your existence but defines your life, it becomes that much harder to break free. Carly remembers her days as a Dark Signer, and the evil of the Earthbound Immortal isn't quite gone – and Jack knows, if he can't help her now, he might have to lose her all over again. -Jack/Carly centric, post Dark Signer AU. Prologue posted!
1. Chapter 1

*writes this instead of updating my other fics* Important notes: Sexual situations (aka smut. Shameful, shameful smut), swearing, dark themes, and psychological trauma. Also on A03 (but the prologue and chapter 1 are together).

* * *

**_Prologue_**

* * *

_._

_._

_._

_"Rise and shine, Jack."_

There is darkness judging him from above and evil is grasping at him from below. Her hands give him a sense of familiarity, keeping him grounded as the tower shifts when the continents collide from somewhere over the burning horizon. When he dares to open his eyes he finds the same stone ceiling, the same marked walls, the same Hell. He's here again for the fourth or fifth or fifteenth time, hallucinating that he's in a world of crumbling skies and earthen fire and he's the King of all its desolation.

He barely recollects how long he's been trapped, if he really is trapped. Who's to say this isn't real anymore? He can't tell. His nightmares have merged with his reality, his dreams have been ripped open at the seams to release their destruction. And this girl, at his side – she spits lies through her teeth and masks them with gentle smiles that resonate _Carly_ but are borderline _demonic_. Her black sclera gloss over with falsified emotions, layers of desire and lust and hate and _despair_, collapsing into her pupils, swallowing up what little remains of the woman he loves.

Carly and Misery, they're one in the same now. The line dividing them has been ripped away by that Immortal deity.

"Isn't this simply wonderful?" she purrs into the base of his neck, entwining their bare legs, pressing her chest into his arm. She digs her blunt nails into his ribs, earning a hiss when blood draws up to the surface of his punctured flesh. "Just you and me. We have this world, we have all the ruin and the chaos at our every command... and those ghouls worship you, Jack. They worship their _King_."

A shiver rides up his spine. He clutches the sheet beneath him to keep himself steady, to breathe in. _Breathe. Just breathe_.

Misery mounts him when he doesn't answer her. She kisses him, tastes like ash and rot and ice, but he can't help himself and meets her for every tantalizing movement. His hands have already made themselves comfortable on either side of her neck, one thumb against the base of her throat, the other pressed to her quickened pulse. From this angle, if he really, _really_ wants to, he can snap her neck.

"You won't hurt me," she hisses into his ear, trailing kisses down his jaw. One arm snakes under the sheet, nails sensually scraping his skin. "You don't want to harm Carly. You don't want to be alone _again_, do you?"

He gasps when her firm grip finds what she's looking for. "This isn't real," he utters, clutching her throat, not tightly but surely. "As much I'd like it, you wouldn't die."

"Mm, you're hoping to escape from this." She strokes him to life, weaving her fingers into his golden locks and tugging, hard, so his head snaps back and exposes his throbbing veins. "You can escape any time you want to, Jack. I'm not the one keeping you here."

"That's another lie."

"That's the truth." She settles easily onto him, bringing both hands back to anchor into his sides. "You can leave when you want. I've already tormented you to my liking – and you've figured out this is just a trick. So what's stopping you, Jack, _hm_? What's"—she rolls her hips—"_stopping_"—he gasps, thrusting up to meet her—_**"you?"**_

"I just want my Carly back," he says finally, hands dropping down to Misery's waist in defeat. In reluctant submission. She's won, she always wins.

The demon chuckles as he breaks for the umpteenth time this cycle, gives in to the nightmare again and again and again. "I'm sorry Jack," she whispers, but her quiet voice fills the musky air with the intensity of a roaring engine, "you're not strong enough to save her. _You never were_."

And he believes her.


	2. Chapter 2

**(Six weeks after the construction of the Daedalus Bridge)**

* * *

"You're not going to eat? I made enough for everyone."

The nightmare replays in Jack's mind from beginning to end, again, _again_, rewinding when he thinks he could have heard Carly's voice crying his name, fast-forwarding through the parts where the demon breaks him like a glass menagerie. Is it really a dream when he had to experience that, had to suffer through two Hells at once before he could get enough strength to wake back up? _When did I allow myself to become so weak?_

"Jack? You okay man?"

Jack stares at the table for several seconds before the comment finally registers. He drags his eyes up to Crow sitting across from him, and then diverts them over to Yusei by the stove. "I was staring off into space. What was that?"

"Aren't you going to eat?" Yusei repeats, gesturing to the cheap grade beef-and-rice he's made.

"No, not right now."

"You haven't eaten in three days. Please have something, I'm starting to worry."

The former King returns his gaze to the table before pushing up to his feet. "I'm _fine_. I have a job interview in an hour so I have to go."

"Job interview?" Crow retorts. "I figured every place in the city would have fired you by now."

Jack snatches his coat off the chair and makes a swift exit from the Gear Mill, leaving Yusei and Crow to stare at his wake. "I'm _definitely_ worried," Yusei amends. "He hasn't been himself since we returned from the Satellite. Should we do something?"

"Think it has anything to do with Carly?"

"Why?"

"She called me last week to ask why Jack isn't answering her anymore."

"Let's avoid getting involved," Yusei decides, "and wait until it seems like he really needs our advice. If I know Jack, he'll work it out. He always does."

Almost half a minute later, Jack returns with his jacket still thrown over his shoulder. Crow and Yusei watch him intently, waiting for him to speak. "I realized it's Friday," he says matter-of-factly, placing himself back in his previous seat. "My interview was on Wednesday."

"Typical you," Crow mutters under his breath.

"Is there something you want to talk about with us?" Yusei adds, stirring the contents of the pot around. "We're your best friends, you can tell us when there's something on your mind."

As if summoned by the existence of bad luck itself, a familiar voice rings out from the front hall. "Crow! I got a package I need you to deliver for me!" Carly enters the kitchen a moment later with a sealed cardboard box in her arms, but as soon as she notices Jack, she freezes. He glances the other way so he doesn't have to meet her stare. And just like that, the elephant is in the room and no one wants to mention it.

"A package?" Crow asks finally, shifting uncomfortably in his seat.

"From my boss," Carly answers, setting it gently on the table. "I told him you had cheap rates so he wants you to bring this to some of our journalists covering a story on the construction of additional duel lanes down east."

"I can do it today, I'm dropping off other packages at the east end anyway."

"Awesome!" She rifles in her pockets and pulls out a check. "And he says this is your payment. That's more than enough, right?"

Crow accepts the slip and glances it over. "This is twice as much as I charge!"

"I may have lied about the rates."

"Wow, thanks!"

"You want something to eat?" Yusei offers, transferring the pot from the stove to the center tray on the table. "I've made plenty, you can help yourself."

Carly waves her hands at him. "No thank you, Yusei! I ate already! And I'm a journalist, I can't stay in one place for too long!" She quickly glances at Jack out of the corner of her eye. Again, the room falls into a thick silence that threatens to crumble under the tension. "Can we talk?" she starts carefully, as if testing the temperature of steaming water. He doesn't acknowledge her statement, so she tries again, more forcefully this time. "Jack. Jack, I want to talk. Please."

"Now's not a good time," he replies tonelessly.

"Now's never a good time for me, is it?" He goes rigid, clenching both fists against the table. She's backed him up against a wall so easily, and all it took was a straight face and a tone so stern it threatened to fracture. When he doesn't respond, her jaw visibly tightens and she faces the door. "That's what I thought. Forget it then."

"Fine. Let's talk."

"I said forget it. Getting through to you is like going through a brick wall – one of us is going to crash and get hurt, so I'd rather avoid you at all costs."

Jack rises from his chair, taking up his jacket once more and throwing it over his shoulders. "No, let's talk. There's a lot we need to discuss."

Yusei and Crow watch them take their leave, keeping their distances from each other like avoiding the plague. When the door swings shut, Crow exhales his held breath. "Whew, that was better than a soap opera."

"Let's just hope it doesn't end like one," Yusei mumbles, pressing his palm to his forehead.

* * *

.

.

.

"You've been avoiding me."

He's staring at her. It feels like the world is going to collapse beneath his feet as every breath that crumples his chest carves leagues of silence between them. The garage is dismally, eerily reflective of the desolate wasteland he had last seen her in; a world of shadows with air as thick as tar. He wants to grasp her, to feel her in his arms again, but she's standing out of his reach and his feet won't fucking move.

"Carly…"

"You told me you loved me."

He curls his fingers into tight fists that threaten to tear the fabric of his gloves. "I did – I still do."

"You sure as Hell don't act like you do."

His breath hitches. She's never like this – raw with morose, as if sliding a scalpel down her chest and exposing her emotions to him in brutal, agonizing truth. He stares at her back, every wrinkle in the sleeves of her favorite shirt, every fade in the jacket and the carefully combed ends of her hair. _Why won't you turn and face me?_

"You don't understand, it's got nothing to do with you. It's just that I-" When his voice cracks it fails him. She visibly stiffens. "_You died._ I was so afraid that I had failed you, but when I saw you with our friends, when I saw that you were _alive_-"

"It clearly meant nothing to you."

"That's _not_-"

"You've got your fame back, Jack – all the girls you could ever want, all the fans and loving friends and the bountiful riches of your labor." She brings one arm up to clutch the other elbow. "You don't need someone like me."

"What's your point, Carly? That you're going to walk out on me – on us – because I don't give you _attention_? Because you think that I don't – that I don't-"

"_Love you_, Jack? Is that what you're struggling to say?"

She's bitter and broken and he hates himself because he doesn't like her this way – he just wanted Carly back, his Carly, _the_ Carly, one and only. And now that he has her she's slipping out of his desperate grasp the same way she had the first time he lost her.

The second time he lost her.

_Not a third. Please, please not a third._

She bites back a sob, breathes. "I'm sorry if your feelings for me have changed, but that doesn't mean you can ignore me. That doesn't mean you have the right to act like I'm _not_ _here_. I've already ceased to exist once before. I can't take that again."

"Carly…"

"_What_, Jack? _What_."

"I didn't know if I was ready for the pain of being close to you. I needed some space, some time, to think and reflect and decide. But I want to make it better between us. I want to make things right, because I _do_ love you, even if I don't express it the way I should."

She shakes her head, dabs her eyes with her sleeves and readjusts her glasses. "Shut up, Jack. Just shut up for once in your goddamn _life_ and stop feeding me _lies!_ I'm not going to be an emotional punching bag."

"You're not."

"That's right, I'm _not_. So when you're ready to stop lying through your teeth, then I'll be ready to hear the truth. Until then, I'm going home."

"…You're not sounding like yourself, Carly."

"Don't you understand?" She snaps, and the weight of the world caves down on his chest. "I remember being a Dark Signer, Jack! I remember how you treated me and how the darkness fed me lies and power and – and how I finally felt at _peace_ because for the first time in my pathetic life I had a reason for being _me_. Now I'm confused, lost and hopeless and struggling to scrape together money just to make ends meet! I'm that loser you met in the hospital all over again and I'm tired of being stepped on!"

Jack notices her shaking, her violent quaking from her shoulders to her knees and how she's dropped her head into her hands, discarded her stupid glasses to the floor because her eyes are burning and her voice tastes like rage and her oxygen is poisoning her lungs.

"I miss the power," she whimpers, both hands masking her face, bringing back the darkness still enveloped in her mind. "I miss… being certain of myself, having people who viewed me as equals and never mistreated me. You don't understand what it's like Jack! You don't understand what it's like to be a no body with no friends and what it's like to lose everything that made you finally feel on top of the world!"

Then, he moves. He envelops her, closing her in his arms. "But I do understand."

She attempts to shove him away but he holds her tighter, against his chest, leaning down so his forehead is pressed to the side of her brow. He's right, she knows it. He gets that feeling, _he gets it_. "But you don't understand," she whispers now, clutching the sleeves of his jacket. "Jack, you don't _understand_. I can feel _it_. The darkness, the demon, it calls me and it still wants me. Without you I'm toppling and with you I'm crumbling. I don't know what to do! Jack, please make this all stop, _please_-"

"Tell me what you want," he ushers, too gentle to be Jack but still demanding, still an arrogant, selfish prick with a heart of gold. "Let me in, Carly. _Let me in_."

She breaks. She gyrates in his grasp to hug him close and collapses to the floor a heap of hysteria and screaming, choking on sobs and bringing him down to her level against the cold, unforgiving ground.

And he holds her.

_He holds her._

* * *

They're at the desk across the room nearly twenty minutes later, seated side-by-side, his jacket draped over her shoulders. She has her recovered glasses lying next to her half-empty mug of tea, but she isn't very interested in drinking the rest right now, and instead watches the steam grasp uselessly at the air. Her eyes burn. At the very least, she thinks that she's gotten her anger out of her system – for now – even though a sense of despair accompanies the newfound emptiness in her chest.

It's not like her to feel so much hatred, so much antipathy, all at once. For a minute, it was almost like she had become consumed by the Earthbound Immortal's darkness again. _But it's dead now_, she tells herself, _it's dead_. _And everything that's happening is a side effect of coping without it._

"Let me stay with you."

She reluctantly drags her weary eyes to Jack. He has his gaze fixated on the sunlight streaming through the thin windows above, and she almost feels guilty for blaming him for a series of events that were so far out of their control. _That are now so far behind them._ "You don't have to. I'm going to be okay, Jack."

"I'm sure you will. You're a strong person, and I believe you'll get through it. But I want to stay with you for a while. Just a little while. Like we did before. I'll even pay sixty-percent of the bill."

"Jack…"

"Carly."

She giggles suddenly, filling him with a renewed sense of hope. "Okay, I can't possibly say no to the great Jack Atlas. This will be so exciting! I can get interviews with you all the time and I'll finally make it in the world as a real journalist! Maybe I'll even be the best there is!" She swallows the last of her tea, sets the empty mug down again, and exhales a sigh of relief. "But, you need a job. A real job. That you can keep."

"Of course."

She flashes him a smile that could light a sun before betraying her physical happiness with a despondent sigh. "I'm sorry about my outburst."

"I'm sorry I went about trying to protect you the wrong way. Again." He stares down at her intently. "So, you really remember everything, about what happened."

"Yes."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't want you to worry about me, of course. You already dealt with so much - it wasn't something I figured you should know. And it didn't come back to me all at once, most I recollected in the first few days, and the rest I pieced together."

"So then you remember… what we did. What happened during those cycles of the vision."

"Yes." She turns away to hide her blush. "I… I wasn't exactly not in control at that point. I was just twisted. It happens to the best of us – okay, well, I take that back. It's not every day someone gets shoved out a window and reborn as a demon queen, but I digress."

"So you knew what was happening."

"M-Maybe I should wash this!"

Jack stands as she does. She sets the jacket down on the chair, briskly taking her mug over to the sink to rinse it and place it up on the counter. When she returns to him, he's still poised, watching her carefully and silently.

"Is there something on my face?" she questions, touching the points of her lips.

"No, it's just… you made it over there without your glasses."

"Oh, I guess you're right. I dunno, after the whole signer fiasco, my eye sight has been coming and going." She gazes down at her hand, how it fades out into a blur at first, but then transfixes, clear as the summer sky.

He gently takes both sides of her face, tilting her up and leaning down to level the height distance, gently brushing chapped lips against hers. "I really thought I had lost you, Carly. And that pain was almost unbearable. I didn't expect to see you the day I returned to Satellite."

"You kissed me."

"I did."

"And then you never spoke to me again."

"I'm sorry."

It's coming back to her – she can tell now. _She feels it_. That spark, the way the darkness cleaves a knife through the light and how the light bends around the blade. Endless and untouchable and consuming her raw. "Jack… you're not one for apologizing."

"But I have to. Just this once. I'm sorry I let you slip away from me, but this time, I won't ever let you go again."

She welcomes his kiss, familiar to her after the first time this happened in that hellish world with chaos and ruin (first dozen times, all a blur of gnashing teeth and clipped dragon wings). How he welcomed her insanity, embraced her shattered sanity, pieced her together and made her whole for only that one, single, brief, brief moment. How he swiftly lifted her onto the table top, the way he's doing now, by her thigh and hip, effortless, enthralling.

Gently kissed his way down her neck, moaning as she teased her fingers through his hair and clutched the back of his skull, tightening her grip when he found that sweet spot at her pulse point, and sucked, just like that –

She cries out and slams back down into reality. He's back to feverishly kissing her, helping her shrug off the vest, and her hands are trembling at his waistline, clumsily working at undoing his belt, zipping down the fly with an imperative tug. It's familiar to her, these movements. She surprisingly doesn't feel shy, or self-conscious or anxious – as if a hidden, deeper part of her is engulfing her logic and taking control of the reigns.

She wraps her legs around his waist, letting him shove her down on her back with both hands pinned over her head. He forces up her shirt, relocating those sweet spots of hers on the pallid expanse of flesh directly above her naval, and sucks her exposed skin. She groans, squirming, working at the clasp of her own bra as he softens her up with his tender caresses.

Carly wouldn't have been the one to like it this rough, this impatient, but she's done it as Misery and all she knows now is that she needs it and she needs him and she needs to know that she's still herself, that she's still the Carly Jack really loves.

He trails his kisses up to the center of her chest, pinning her arms over her head again. This time she leaves them and lets him dominant her, removing the bra himself and tossing it somewhere aside, exposing her breasts to the open air. He strokes them gently, kisses the inner skin, working slowly this time as she toes off her shoes and exhales a sigh of his name.

It drives him wild.

He swallows one of her perked nipples, utilizing both hands to pin her waist down when she cries out, grabbing one edge of the table and the locks of his hair, bucking with a surge of pleasure. She recalls being sensitive and he clearly remembers himself, because he abuses her bud, sucks her hard and switches between them just when the other is getting too sore. Something hot and wet and alive is heating up between her legs. She'd close them if it wasn't for his intrusive waist, and all she can think to do is utter his name. "_Jack_… Jack, _please_"—her voice is borderline cracking under the pressure—"I need-"

"_Carly_."

She melts, relaxing under the heat of his voice against her chest. He unbuttons her jeans and backs up, sliding them off with her panties in the same fluid motion before he's reoccupied the space with himself. More specifically, his face. He doesn't mind that the floor is rough on his knees and parts her thighs with both hands, meeting the heat of her womanhood with passionate kisses, intoxicated and overwhelmed.

A cry escapes her throat again. She has to grasp the table edge again, and subconsciously covers her flushed face with the back of her other arm.

He moves up to her clit, sucking gently on the aroused flesh, anchoring her to the table again when she arcs her back and threatens to buck. He rubs the pad of tongue against her throbbing muscle in response, knowing what she likes, remembering what she likes, and she all but screams his name. One hand drops under his chin to snake his middle finger into her tight opening, massaging her inner walls with an expert digit that presses on every nerve, feeling her rapid pulse, her excitement.

"_Jack_ – Jack, I can't – I'm going to-!"

"Not yet," he says, rising back up and planting her arms on either side of her head by her wrists. "I want to come with you. Carly. _Carly_, look at me."

She forces her gaze to meet his, eyes glazed over with a hazy lust. Both crawling with encroaching shadows. It almost scares him, but he strokes the arch of her cheek and the darkness recedes under his gentle touch.

_You're so beautiful._

He kisses her, feeling himself surge to life when she sighs against him. He enters her slowly but she doesn't even flinch, only wraps her legs around his again in anticipation. Then, he pulls out, and thrusts forward carefully. She tosses her head back, a strangled gasp emitting from her throat, curling her nails into her palms.

"Faster," she whispers, "don't be so gentle. I'm okay."

He obliges. His pace picks up. The table creaks under the weight of their movements and she sobs out mangled calls of his name and throaty cries that overlap the slapping of skin and the grunts he smothers in the crevice of her neck. She can't handle all the pleasure – the familiarity is strong but it's still so new, defined by their love and their bond and their light. It isn't a consuming darkness that threatens him with lust and it isn't an overwhelming desire to break his every bone, to crack the marrow and see what he's made of.

And then, _she wants to kill him._

She hears the immortal's voice, calling out to her from somewhere behind her, in front of her, all around her and yet it isn't there at all. It's skewed, swallowed by Jack's whispers of her name, as desperate and ravenous as the first time she allowed him to fuck her. It takes everything within her to keep herself from grasping his exposed throat and strangling him, right here, right now.

_If only I could-_

He bites the swollen pulse of her neck, earning a quiet moan that brings her back to reality a second time. His thrusts are ruthless now and it's driving her to the brink of the edge. She wants to touch herself but his hands are keeping her pinned, and the thought of being dominated by _the_ Jack Atlas turns her on with the intensity of igniting a fire. Her insides are flaring, her face is burning, and her heart is hammering against her chest like forging iron weapons.

"J-Jack, I'm close, I'm _close-_!"

"So soon?"

"Please Jack, let me – _I need to_-"

He chuckles against the base of her neck. "Ssh, it's okay…" He doesn't break his pace as he crosses her wrists and nails them above her head with just one hand, bringing the other down over the curve of her side. His playful fingers slide up to grasp one nipple, earning a buck from her hips and a shout of surprise, before trailing back down between her legs. He massages her clit in a circle with the pad of his thumb, pounding her into the table with all his might.

Her screaming is sure to attract the attention of the whole neighborhood and he doesn't even care. This is all that matters to him now – she's all the matters to him now. It's her. _It's Carly._

"Jack, I'm coming! **Jack** – **JACK!"**

The orgasm explodes through her with enough force to lift her from the table and slam her back down again, sending her body into a haywire overdrive that ripples through her nerves and threatens to black her out completely. He releases deep within her when her collapsing walls become too much to bear, grunting out her name, drawing out her orgasm with a final handful of easing thrusts.

Her body trembles and twitches with the waves of her orgasm, muttering incoherently under her breath. He's panting above her, gently sliding himself out and releasing her hands.

She shields her embarrassed face with the back of her arm.

"Don't hide," he whispers, but when he coaxes her arm down, he finds her crying. "Did I hurt you?! Are you okay?"

_I want to kill you, Jack._

"No, I'm fine, I just"—she sniffles, beaming up at him with a smile as bright as the blinding sun—"from this angle, your bangs don't cover that scar I gave you."

He presses his fingertips to the eroded, jagged mark under his bangs that trails from the right side of his brow and over his left eyebrow. "I don't notice it anymore," he says passively. "It ruined my fifth best feature, but ladies dig battle scars, so that's okay."

Carly laughs light-heartedly, and it melts him like ice. "Looks like I'll have some competition for your affection now, huh?"

"You're the only girl for me."

They seal that promise with a kiss.

Almost immediately, the door above the stairwell swings open. Jack reflexively snatches up his jacket and throws it over Carly's exposed body, and barely manages to tuck himself in when Trudge appears on the platform. "Son of a Satellite-" He slaps his hands over his eyes. "You could've locked the door!"

"We're done anyway," Jack snaps back, zipping himself up. "Why don't you let us get decent?"

The officer parts his fingers, and after realizing that Carly is tucked under the protective jacket, gaze averted bashfully to the floor, he decides to drop his arms. "Did you at least use protection?"

"What does protection matter?" Jack questions skeptically. "Neither of us has any diseases."

"Haven't you heard of pregnancy?"

Jack hesitates. "Oh, I didn't consider that part."

"Y-You didn't?!" Carly retorts. "I didn't even think of it! Oh, nonono! I'm not ready for babies yet!"

"Babies come from _women_?" the blond says in disbelief.

"Yes! Where did you _think_ they come from?!"

"Capsules."

"What?!"

"That's where Yusei came from. And Rally came out of a trash can the day we found him. And I didn't know any women with babies in my time, so when I tried to find out one day, no one really had a clue and I dropped it altogether."

Trudge and Carly stare at Jack for several prolonged moments before the former duelist faces the door. "I need to reflect on my life choices. You guys should come out when you're dressed, I got something I want to show you."

Jack watches the older man leave before furrowing his brow. "Sounds serious."

"_That_ sounds serious, but a baby doesn't?"

"Can't we just have Martha take care of it? What parents take care of children?"

"Normal ones, Jack."

"Well, I don't want to be a normal parent."

"You shouldn't want to be a parent at all! You're not financially stable enough!" Carly exhales, shaking her head again, which she seems to do a lot around him now-a-days. "Never mind, let's just go."

* * *

A/N: ...wellp, here's my next project, a different writing style and all. But don't be surprised if I accidentally start writing with my normal style and it turns into a descriptive hunk of space. Despite my shitty track record thus far, hopefully I can finish this and all the 7 chapters I have planned so far.


End file.
